Conlangery Podcast

George reveals a peeve, which leads to a bit of a tangent before we get to talking about the wonderful world of evidentials and all the stuff you can do with them.  Then we cover a very curious language by the name Talossan. Top of Show Greeting: Gówa Links and Resources: Evidentiality in Tibetan Evidence from Evidentials WALS: Coding of Evidentials Featured Conlang: Talossan Feedback: Email from Arnt Richard Johansen: Hi, folks. Great show, I’ve listened to every episode since #1 (except #13, which is so incredibly long, and I haven’t gotten around to #16 yet).I’m writing to bring to your attention a topic which I think is under-appreciated in our circles: prosody and intonation.I like David Peterson’s Dothraki a lot. Not because its grammar and lexicon is cleverly done (although it is), but because when he pronounces example sentences in the language, it sounds believable.It seems that most language creators just borrow all the intonation patterns from their native language, but Dothraki doesn’t sound like English – or any language I know. But I can tell that it isn’t random either, there is some kind of system to it. If I only knew what that system was!Tone and stress, which are categories that operate at the word level, are fairly well-described. But when it comes to making a system that applies to whole sentences or utterances, I have no clue. What is a conlanger supposed to do to figure out how questions should differ from statements, or how to emphasize morphs, words and phrases in different ways, or to mark sarcasm? When it comes to intonation, what may differ between languages, and what is truly universal?

Today we talk about demonstratives.  Chiefly, what distinctions are common for demonstratives, and what crazy out-there distinctions you can make.  We also review a conlang that should be very familiar to you all. Top of Show Greeting: Zelsen Featured Conlang: Quenya Thorsten Renk’s Quenya Course (archive download) Ardalambion on Quenya Feedback: Email from Stephen Rogers: George and Bianca, I thought the following new title might be of interest to you. A DICTIONARY OF MADE-UP LANGUAGES: From Adūnaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon, the Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons http://www.stephendrogers.com/Anthos/DictionaryOfMade-UpLanguages.htm Bio:  Stephen D. Rogers is a contributor to The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction & Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders; a member of the Language Creation Society; and the award-winning author of more than 700 shorter pieces. Let me know what you think. Comment on #19 by David J Peterson: English has 11 basic color terms. I think you may be getting confused about what “basic color term” means. A basic color term is a color term that can’t be explained in terms of other color terms. So in English, you can’t describe “pink” as “light red” or “whitish red”, or anything. That’s how we know “pink” is a basic color term. The largest number of basic color terms is 12 (Russian and Hungarian, which have different basic terms for what we’d call “light blue” and “dark blue”). “Basic color term” does not mean “not produced from derivational morphology”. “Orange” is a basic color term even though it’s a borrowing; “puce” is not a basic color term even though it’s pretty cohesive. See this description for more.

George has put up a grammar!  Also, we talk numerals — what base to use, how to construct higher numerals, cardinal vs ordinal, etc.  Then we feature a little bogolang called Wenedyk. Top of the Show Greeting: Celinese Links and Resources: WALS Numerical Base WALS Ordinals WALS Distributives WALS Numeral Classifiers Alyutor (Wikipedia) Pame number system (transition from octal to vigesimal) Janko Gorenc Featured Conlang: Wenedyk Feedback: Email from Mathew Park: Dear Conlangery,Over the past two days I have listened to all of your pod casts. While I am no linguist (my degrees are in communication and English [so not too far from linguistics]) the terms you have used, while difficult to understand in the first few pod casts, were easy enough to look up on Wikipedia. I also enjoy when you pause and give an English example of a concept that non linguists may not understand.First and foremost let me applaud your podcast. While it may sound overly dramatic, listening to you all has convinced me to peruse a degree in linguistics. I have already scouted schools and by next fall I should be enrolled.  I think for me this is a good life choice, because I may be the only person in the world who has run a red light just to get home from work in order to finish a podcast on Nonconfigurationality.I have only been conlanging for about four weeks now. So this has been a valuable resource. You made me think of things I never would have otherwise. While I have not been creating languages for long, I have written prose and poetry for almost 10 years now, so I am not new to creating things from nothing. In that regard I found that thinking about the culture that would use the language has helped me better decide what types of words they would use and how they would use them. I also enjoy the chemistry you three have. Please tell Bianca that I here by swear to never use X-Sampa. While I cannot say much of my own language at the moment, as there is less than anything to present, I do have several comments and questions that I think might be interesting (again since I am not a linguist, but more of an English major, these are more about the idea of language then the linguistically parts) 1)I would be interested in hearing you three’s opinion on the philosophical view of language as a whole. This may sound a bit vague. What I mean is: Humans are the only species we can confirm as having a language. We have viewed language like behavior in other species, dancing bees, singing birds, and even various smell based communications. After listening to seven straight hours of your pod cast I began to think about the English language and how it’s even possible to understand it as easy as I do, and I swear for a few moments I forgot how to understand language. Do you think language is intrinsic to all sentient life, or is it something that only advanced species can hope to obtain? 2) What are your thoughts on nouns that cant be broken down(even if you have to cross languages)? For example the word Television is a combination of Tele and Vision, Tele I am assuming must come from Latin being remote, again I assume. And it can be seen in other words, Telephone Telekinesis Telecommunications. Other words can’t really be broken down to explain their meaning. Like the word Bookshelf can be broken down in to Book and Shelf ( a shelf for books), but Book and Shelf cannot be broken down to further understand.  In a conlang (from an English perspective) how much of your words do you think should be untranslatable in concept? -More Fun Questions- 3) Do any of you indulge in a little egotism when creating your language? Perhaps using the your name or the names of people you like (or dislike) to create words, positive or negative. If you were to translate your English name into one of your conlangs, what would your name most likely mean phonetically? 4) Even though I have only been conlanging for less then a month, I have dreamed in my own language. Do any of you find yourself dreaming/thinking in any of your languages? In closing, thank you for the pod cast, I hope it goes on for as many years as you are able to do it. And while it may be a lofty goal, having only a few dozen pages of my own conlang, One day I vow that you will feature my –as yet unnamed- language on your podcast. Thank You

After some discussion of one little New York Times article that quoted William(!), we move along to talking about designing your sound system and romanization, though it’s mostly about romanization.  After that, we break a pattern and for the first time feature a natlang rather than a conlang — going from a grammar that just so happens to be the dissertation of one Mark Okrand.  The language is Mutsun. Top of Show Greeting: Standard Sentalian Links and Resources: George’s “Design Perameters for Romanization” Featured NATLANG: Mutsun

A very special guest host joins us for this episode, where we try to talk about correlatives as a thing, but as correlatives is actually many different things, we end up just talking about indefinites the whole time.  We have much more Top of Show Greeting: pr̝̊ɛmɪsl Links and Resources: Esperanto correlatives WALS on Indefinites Featured Conlang: Gomain Feedback: Koppa Dasao (comment on #26): Good news. Was at my check up Tuesday, and my kidneys are patching up. Now I got more than half-a-kidney sustaining me   Email: James Campbell: Enjoyed episode 26 a great deal – no offence, but the editing definitely helps the “listener experience”. The whole thing flows so much better.And yes, it looks like Basque does have a vigesimal system, and a pretty sane one to boot. For a truly twisted vigesimal counting system, see Danish (a system that was borrowed into/influenced Faroese, with further extraordinary phonetic mangling – although it looks like Faroese has largely changed over to a decimal system now).Owen: Way back, William mentioned using LaTeX and LyX to create documents and lexicons. I responded at the time to say I was trying those out, but I am struggling to figure out how I would convert a spreadsheet lexicon into dictionary form and wondered if William has any insight/ideas of how I can do this.Right now, my lexicon is a GoogleDoc spreadsheet with several columns:  word–pronunciation–englishequiv—wordtype—notes etc.  I would love to be able to present this in “OED” format, with nicer, longer descriptions and a uniform style.Thanks again for the podcast and your shared insights into language in general.  

We start off with a reccomendation of sorts of the Speculative Grammarian Podcast, and George’s own long post on romanization.  Then we get into the meat of the show talking about all kinds of irregularity and “regular irregularity”.  Then we take a 180-degree turn and talk about the insanely regular Esperanto. Top of Show Greeting: Ayeri Featured Conlang: Esperanto (also here) Feedback: Email from Nathaniel: I’ve developed a fairly complicated type of poetry for my conlang Japaratu. This kind of poetry is known as the Gį́į́, and takes advantage of several rules that Japaratu has such as tone and nasal harmony. It also used consonance and alternating patterns of high, low, and middle tones. Interesting, the Gį́į́ does not use vowel length, although other poetry forms do.I write the mechanics of the Gį́į́ this way:A is a nasal syllable with high tone. B is a nasal syllable with low tone. C is a nasal syllable with middle tone. D is a oral syllable with high tone. E is a oral syllable with low tone. F is a oral syllable with middle tone.The first and second occurence of a syllable do not have to be the same word, but they must have the same features. Thus, péék and pár would fall in the same class. A, B, and C must all begin with the same sound. D, E and F must be the sound’s nasal equivalent. M is a nasal monosyllabic word with middle tone. O is a oral monosyllabic word with middle tone. Unlike the above, M and O have to be the same word in all contexts. 1. ABCA 2. M 3. DEFD 4. O 5. ABCA 6. O 7. DEFD 8. M 9. MMOO Because the structure is so strict, the poems do not have necessarily have to make sense, although it is more prestigious to do so. Because the Japaratu are a poetry-loving culture, they have developed an elaborate poetry notation system. Here is an example: 1.ká kùb-kot 2.mų 3.gų́ų́į́į́m gų̀m gǫǫg 4.et 5.kóp kììj kiuu 6.et 7.gę́ę́r-gį̀-gįįęr 8.mų 9.mų mų et et — tìt. Which literally translates as: rock marble clear autumn fern dirt poison tide clever branch poison elder clear clear clear poison poison Negative copula (to not be) My apologies if any or most of this is unclear. Thanks for sharing all of this with us. On little correction:the word tìt at the end of the Poem is the name of the author and is not part of the poem.

We talk about one of William’s pet peeves in conlang descriptions and linguistics in general: the overuse of the word “emphasis”.  We start out with some very strong reccomendations against using it in phonology, and then talk about some more standard terms you might use instead when talking about discourse or syntax.  We also review Yivrian, created by the writer of the well-known (in the community) “Artlanger’s Rant”. Top of Show Greeting: Mybutan Conlang: Yivrian Feedback: Email: Dear Conlangery Podcast!I wasn’t sure where I should leave this little message, but I just had to say something. I am a beginner when it comes to conlanging (truth be told, though I have been “writing” about my conworld for years, but I was using  a truly bastardized version of Esperanto for one of their languages. I have since scrapped it to start fresh and think of myself as a true beginner). I tend to let my love of Japanese guide the way a bit too much, though, so I was kind of scared of infixes. But I made myself go through Bianca’s Inyauk lessons yesterday and they really are pretty easy. She and William did say it was true. Glad I took a chance. :)I also wanted to say how much I appreciated episode #15, Getting Out of Creative Ruts. Blending natlangs is what I think of to get out of it a lot. I also look to specific words out of a bunch of languages to see which I like best before adding it to the lexicon (it takes a while, but it feels more personal than using a word generator for all your words). I love this podcast–I like knowing that not all of my ideas are crazy. Best wishes, Robyn Conlang: Yivrian

We have a guest on, Olle Heikilä, who we totally didn’t forget to add to the Skype call, and have a nice discussion on grammatical voice and what it’s for, what you can include, and just in general.  If you believe what your English teacher taught you about voice, prepare to be disabuse.  We also review Tseeyo, a wonderful little language with a terrible website. Links and Resources The Great Wiki on voice Circumstantial Passive Chômeur Conlang: Tseeyo

After some observations about the merits of Star Wars and plastic chopsticks, we tell you all kinds of stuff about possession: alienable vs inalienable, various marking strategies, “to have” and more.  Oh, and we talk about Abakwi. Top of Show Greeting: rejistanian Conlang: Abakwi Feedback: Email from Matt Pearson: Hi George, I finally had a chance to listen to the podcast that featured Okuna. Many thanks to you and your co-hosts for taking the time to review it, and for all your praise and thoughtful comments! To have others review one’s conlang project favourably–to have others take it seriously at all–is very gratifying. Though I know you’ve now moved on to other conlangs, I’d like to respond to a couple things that came up in your discussion. Feel free to pass these comments on to your co-hosts as well. (1)  Dictionary: I’ve attached a PDF of the current draft of the dictionary, in case you’re interested in looking at it. (2)  PDF versus HTML: message received! As I mentioned in an earlier email, it hadn’t really occurred to me before to just post an online link to the PDF and leave it at that. Perhaps thinking in terms of the way things were a decade or more ago, when downloading large files from the web was a less trivial undertaking than it is now. Anyway, I’ve run your idea past David Peterson of LCS, so we’ll see what he says (he’s the one who, out of the goodness of his heart, had taken on the burden of HTML-ifying the grammar). I’m hopeful that–one way or another, and in one format or another–I’ll be able to publish Okuna on an LCS-hosted site sooner rather than later, so it can be made more generally available. (3)  Title page: I’ve actually tried several times adding a title page (with time stamp) to the LaTeX file, but for some reason my LaTeX program doesn’t let me do it. Perhaps I’ve been using the wrong commands. I’ll look into that further. (4)  Texts: There actually aren’t any complete texts written in (the current version of) Okuna, apart from “The North Wind and the Sun”. I’ve been meaning to do some longer texts and include them in the grammar, but nothing has come of that yet. It would be nice to add some Okuna folktales, for instance, or other materials that would reveal a bit more about the Okuna people themselves. So far I’ve been hindered in part by a lack of talent for constructing interesting narratives, combined with a chronic inability to commit to more than a few salient details of the conculture. Contrary to your speculations, there really aren’t any Okuna materials apart from what appears in the grammar itself. No drafts of novels, short stories about the mysterious Sakial, or anything else: the grammar is my magnum opus. One day, though, I’ll manage to create some original texts in Okuna and deepen the concultural dimension of the project. It’s a work in progress, of course. (5)  The /f/ sound: It’s funny that William would be suspicious of (or unhappy about) the presence of /f/, since originally the language didn’t have this sound. I only added it later. Like William, I love small consonant inventories, but eleven was too few: I felt the words were getting too homogeneous looking/sounding, so I added a twelfth. The fact that /f/ was an afterthought, though, means that it occurs in far fewer words than the other consonants. It’s also marginal in other ways–e.g., it’s the only consonant that can’t occur in coda position. (Regarding the voiceless dental fricative, which Bianca mentioned: for some reason I’m prejudiced against that sound, in much the same way that William is with /f/. Maybe I think it makes a conlang look to Celtic/Elvish…) (6)  I would defend using “y” for schwa on the grounds that the 5 regular vowel letters were already taken for other sounds, and I didn’t want to use any diacritics (which would have created problems for using a vowel diacritic to represent irregular stress). Anyway, it’s one of the things that makes Okuna orthography distinctive and slightly weird. I equate it somewhat with Sally Caves’s idiosyncratic but wonderful choice to use “u” for the palatal glide /j/. Thanks again for taking the time to review Okuna. I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you guys weren’t TOO bewildered by the case system! It seems quite normal to me now–but then I’ve been working through it for the past 15 years, so I’m used to it. All the best, Matt.

We talk a little about what we like and dislike about alien languages — and what concepts we think are actually likely to work.  Then we reveiw Ebisédian. Top of Show Greeting: Cardonian Conlang: Ebisédian Feedback: Five-Star Reviews: Great for both people interested in conlanging and linguistics in general by stingerbrg I’m fairly new at the conlanging hobby, so I don’t know much about languages, but this podcast has really helped me. Their discussions of different aspects of language has taught me more than I ever learned in my college linguistics class, and their evaluations of created languages helps to see those aspects put in relation to other aspects. Even if you don’t conlang yourself, the segments on the parts of language are informational enough to be quite enjoyable. This is always one of the first podcasts I listen to in a week, and that’s not just because they are good at regularly updating on Mondays. Great! by Heylola2 I’m into conlanging, and I find this very enjoyable to listen to, even when I’m not doing anything with conlangs. Some of the things said in each podcast inspire me to add to my conlang. I love it :] Tweet from @AmazonDiaspora: @conlangery Have you guys ever experimented in mixing tense and aspect into one concept? I did and it created a weird PoV verb meaning.